Green light given to new countywide health organisation
A new health organisation for the county has formally been given the green light with the creation of a new strategic organisation to deliver health services for local people.
Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group have already been working closer together but wanted to ratify their working practices to streamline their work and reduce duplication costs whilst also increasing efficiency.
To do this the two health organisations, which are responsible for commissioning local health services in the county, will be dissolved and a new strategic commissioning organisation set up in their place.
The plans have now been authorised with conditions by NHS England and NHS Improvement and the new organisation is due to launch on Thursday, 1 April, 2021.
Dr Julian Povey, Chair of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups, said: “Historically we have had two small clinical commissioning groups working across the county and this has led to duplication and inconsistency.
“The key benefit of creating just one single health commissioner to cover the whole county is that there will no longer be a ‘postcode lottery’ as to what services you can access depending on whether you live in Shropshire or over in Telford and Wrekin.”
David Evans, Joint Accountable Office for Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin CCGs, said: “This ratifies the work that has been going on behind the scenes now for some time at the CCGs where we have been stripping out duplication so we can work more efficiently and bring more cohesion to the way we deliver services for the people of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin. This is also part of the process to becoming an integrated care system.
“We have a number of conditions to meet and these are common with major decisions of this kind, but we have already started work on these including the creation of a joint board and action plan.”
